page_title: Be Right Back
section_title: Casting and filming
hierarchical_section_title: Be Right Back / Production / Casting and filming
caption_attribution_description: English: Hayley Atwell at Cassandra's Dream's premiere at Toronto Film Festival 2007
context_page_description: "Be Right Back" is the first episode of the second series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker, directed by Owen Harris, and first aired on Channel 4 on 11 February 2013.
  The episode tells the story of Martha, a young woman whose boyfriend Ash Starmer is killed in a car accident. As she mourns him, she discovers that technology now allows her to communicate with an artificial intelligence imitating Ash, and reluctantly decides to try it. "Be Right Back" had two sources of inspiration: the question of whether to delete a dead friend's phone number from one's contacts, and the idea that Twitter posts could be made by software mimicking dead people.
  "Be Right Back" explores the theme of grief; it is a melancholy story similar to the previous episode, "The Entire History of You". The episode received positive reviews, with the performances of Atwell and Gleeson receiving universal acclaim. Some critics believe it to be the best episode of Black Mirror, though the ending was met with criticism.
context_section_description: Hayley Atwell, who plays Martha, was a fan of the first series of the show, calling it "inventive and very smart", so she asked her agent to get her a part in the second series. Atwell's first impression of the script was that it was "really poignant, but it still had the wit." Asked in a 2013 interview, Atwell said that she was a heavy user of the internet. Domhnall Gleeson plays Ash, and said in a 2018 interview that the role led him to try to use his phone less, with a stage direction where he frantically searches his phone particularly resonating with him.
  The episode was directed by Owen Harris, who would later direct series three episode "San Junipero" – an episode which Harris described as "strangely similar" to this one as both are "relationship-led". Harris was drawn to "Be Right Back" by its "intimate" exploration of "grander themes of love and death and loss". Brooker believes that Harris is "very good with performers" and "gravitates" towards Black Mirror episodes that are "more tender". Brooker praises Harris' "good eye for those authentic, bittersweet and painful moments." He describes that the story "on the one hand is about technology and on the other hand is about grief". Vince Pope composed the episode's soundtrack.
  Atwell was keen to keep Martha grounded and use naturalism to emphasise Martha's grief and aid plausibility of the science fiction concepts. Harris describes Martha as a "girl next door" character, whose goal was to lead a "simple life" with Ash. Before filming, Atwell and Gleeson met at Dans le Noir, a restaurant in which food is served in darkness.
  Harris wished to make the episode appear as if it could be possible in the near future, as if one could "walk into the Mac store tomorrow and it wouldn't be out of place to see people trialling software like this". Production designer Joel Collins said in 2018 that the technology is "almost real now", but "seemed fantastical" at the time. The petrol station has "micro cars", which Collins suggests are electric cars that could be a part of a "simple, small, eco-friendly" future. A touch-screen easel is shown briefly in the episode. Brooker commented that "the design team had a field day with that easel" and that they suggested copyrighting the idea. Brooker wished to avoid a trope of "histrionic" technology interfaces in television, using more subtle cues such as Martha deleting an email on her touch-free laptop with a simple hand movement. One email sent to Martha is a targeted advertisement for books about dealing with grief.
  Harris has said that different endings were discussed, but that "I think we pretty much ended up where we'd started". Harris suggested a family dinner downstairs, but Brooker and Jones preferred for Martha to allow her daughter to see Ash once per week. Atwell described the ending as "very pessimistic", calling her character "numb" and perhaps "medicated". During filming for the final scene, Gleeson had begun to grow a beard for another project; though there was debate over whether the android could have a beard to mark the passage of time, it was removed in editing. This was a difficult and expensive process, as Ash has to talk and walk through shadows and light.
caption: Hayley Atwell was cast as Martha in "Be Right Back".
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